DIY Easy Heartfelt Gifts for Your Favorite People

Celebrate Holidays with Handmade Cards & Botanical Art

Handmade gifts bring so much joy. If you’re looking to DIY this year and spend more time than money, we’ve got tips to help you make easy heartfelt gifts your loved ones will LOVE. Do it yourself and impress friends and family with your creative abilities. Just picture the warm smiles on their faces when you hand them a custom holiday card or framed art, featuring your original botanical illustrations!

Scroll through this post to see the best artistic ideas for creating holiday cards and completing “complex* compositions” using seasonal color combinations.

 

*Complex does NOT mean Complicated!

Your “complex composition” can be quite simple!

When we talk about a “complex composition” of a plant, we do not mean a botanical composition that is complicated! By “complex composition,” we mean that it should show at least three of these components:
-Reproductive Parts, Flowers, Petals
-Stems
-Leaves
-Fruit, Berries, Seedpods
-Roots, Bulbs
-Habit Drawings

PRO TIP: Add decorative elements like borders and text as fancy flourishes.

 

Don’t be afraid to PLAY!

Visualize various options before completing a composition

Quiet your inner critic, don’t be afraid to be “wrong,” and allow yourself to have fun and experiment with your style. The first of these 4 essential composition tips is to see the ideas in your head laid out on paper/screen. It includes a few of our favorite ways to visualize the options before deciding on a final composition – arranging physical subjects, using tracing paper, drawing thumbnail sketches, and comparing files in photoshop or other digital tools. Try multiple methods until you find the arrangement most pleasing to you.

PRO TIP: Embrace the CENTER of the paper.

Though it can be intimidating to dive into the middle of a blank page, the center is a crucial spot, the heart of your composition, and can be a great location for a subject.

 

 

Focus… What are you staring at?

No one likes to spend their time looking at things they find boring, so be sure to choose a subject that you find interesting. What aspects attracted you first? Choose the most compelling part (often identifying characteristics, such as flowers, unusual seed pods or leaf arrangements) to be your focal point.

PRO TIP: Define overlaps, and use contrast to draw the viewer’s eye to your focal point.

Enhance the three-dimensional quality of your focal point using a full range of tones and saturation. To add depth, accentuate overlapping areas with dark tones by shading behind the piece  in the front.

 

 

When choosing a Focal Point, consider the following:

• Always begin a rendering with your focal point.
• Render more detail in the foreground.
• Render less detail in supporting elements and those further back in space.
• Use more contrast and saturation of color in front, with less finishing details in back.
• Use warmer and brighter colors in front.
• Use cooler and grayer colors behind.

 

For more free tips on focal point and composition, check out our Composition Quick Guide and 4 Tips to Elevate Your Composition.

 

 

Color is Crucial!

Match the Mood of the Occasion

Color composition can be crucial to consider when crafting cards for any occasion. The colors you choose set the overall tone of your composition, so make sure to select colors that match the mood. Bright spring flowers might be beautiful subjects for a birthday card in May, but they don’t exactly scream “Happy Holidays” in December…

For inspiration, look to colors occurring in nature at this time of year and other traditional holiday combinations. Nutmeg is a spice associated with holiday meals and contains a great combination of colors found outside in fall, including deep gold, burgundy, and brown. Holly is often associated with the winter season and is a great combination of traditional red and green Christmas colors, which makes it a perfect subject for a holiday card. For a more generic winter card, try white flowers on kraft paper.

Here is more info on Color Theory to learn more about mixing colors to match those found in nature.

 

 

Sprinkle in Botanical Flavor

Add Some Science on the Side

If you are planning on printing a botanical as a card, it is a good opportunity to give some information and raise plant awareness. Botanical art informs by the artwork itself, but accompanying text and title can often give important and useful details. Consider listing the scientific and common name, the family name, and other pertinent information such as where the plant was collected.

 

Examples of Botanical Holiday Cards:

 

 

This composition is simple, but still has impact enough to stand on its own and would make a nice greeting card for any occasion. Even though it looks “simple,” notice that it’s still a “complex composition,” as it contains 3 elements – stem, leaf, and fruit.

 

 

This composition is a sweet, neutral greeting card, perfect for any winter occasion. In addition to balancing out the composition, the text adds more meaning to the card’s sentiment among the broken pieces of nuts.

 

 

This composition is a festive card, perfect for celebrating Christmas (coming quickly around the corner!). Your eye bounces around the well-balanced page and always returns to the bright red focal point in the center. The text is a wonderful botanical addition to this classic card, featuring hollies from Wendy’s winter in the garden in 2002.

PRO TIP: Sign and date your work!

You made something awesome and should be proud. Sign your name and note the date so that when you come across the card again in 25 years, it will bring back joyful holiday memories.

 

Create personal cards for your family and friends, or commercial cards to sell.

Learn how to monetize your botanical art with this blog post.

 

 

Learn More about Creating Winter Cards

Watch the RECORDING from this Zoom Workshop

Send in Photos & Receive Instructor Feedback ANY TIME

This workshop starts by drawing some wintery botanical subjects and then dives into decorative card design. Here’s what you’ll take away:

✏️ Botanical Illustration: Use colored pencil and watercolor to create realistic paintings of your favorite winter plants, from holly berries to pine branches and more.

🎨 Decorative Design: Learn creative ideas for borders, elegant lettering, and festive accents that will make your cards truly special.

💝Heartfelt Gift: An incredible handmade card to share with someone you love – just imagine the warm smiles on your friends’ and family’s faces when they open an envelope and see a custom holiday card, featuring your original botanical illustrations!

Learn More & Watch Recording of Winter Cards Workshop